Balancing Acts

Shields, S

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-88935-7_6

Balancing Acts

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Samantha Shields

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Abstract

© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Term-time paid employment and caring responsibilities are ubiquitous amongst working-class undergraduates and have a detrimental impact on the time available to devote to studying. The dedication phase of internal conversation focused on this balancing act. The employed working-class students did not exhibit the visible studying behaviours of the Mobility-Maintainers. Instead, an ‘ethics of accommodation’ was adopted, in which inconspicuous studying was a strategic approach to prioritising performative achievement, against the constraints of living expense pressures/familial commitments. Rather than a lack of commitment to studying, it was a central preoccupation in order to achieve the ‘life project’, but this needs to be understood as an ‘abstract’, rather than as a ‘practical’ prioritisation.